The One Rule a Family Agreed on Before Moving Onto a Compound Together

What started as a temporary stay at grandma's house during a renovation became a permanent plan for the whole family. Now, with a roommate contract and a homemade wood shop, they're building it together, one project at a time.

Many people dream of one day leaving their parents' home to live independently, marry, start families and build lives of their own. Kaylei Fleming and her family, however, decided on something different and far less conventional.

The Jackson, Mississippi, stay-at-home mom hoped to build a family compound where multiple generations could live together, but before committing to the idea, she knew an honest conversation needed to happen.

During that discussion, she and her loved ones laid out everything that could go wrong. They talked through money, privacy, the sacrifices involved and whether sharing a property was truly the right choice for everyone.

"Before we moved in together, we had a big family meeting on our fears, the risks, what we sacrifice by living together and also what we gain from this living arrangement," Fleming, 32, told People. "The pros outweighed the cons. From there, we made a roommate contract so everyone is on the same page."

Fleming's decision was shaped by an unexpected turn of events following the arrival of her son, Klein. At the time, she and her husband were knee-deep in renovations on their mid-century modern house, so the new parents moved in with her mother while the work was completed.

Living together proved so rewarding that Fleming started to dread moving out, particularly as she saw how close her mother and son were becoming. The feeling was mutual, and the family decided to make the temporary arrangement a lasting one.

Fleming revealed their plans in a video showing the first week of building a family compound on the couple's two-lot property. Her mother has since sold her own house to contribute to the project, which will see the family finish the existing home before eventually building a private wing for her.

Even so, blending households raised issues that rarely surface when family members live in different homes. Chief among them was ensuring that each person would still have a place to escape to whenever they wanted some solitude.

"When we lived with my mom, she had her own wing of the house, and we all agreed that was the thing that made living together actually work," Fleming explains. "Having a space everyone can retreat to makes all the difference, and that's why giving her a wing here is such an important part of the plan."

Finances have posed another challenge, especially as the renovation has grown well beyond what Fleming and her husband first imagined. They purchased the property without ever viewing it in person, and when a light switch broke on moving day, it set off a chain of repairs that ballooned into a full-scale overhaul.

In an effort to save money, Fleming, her husband and her mother are doing a large share of the labor on their own. Her mother has a background in home renovation, and the family has even established its own wood shop to create bespoke finishes for the house.

Of course, collaborating on the project hasn't meant agreeing on everything, particularly when her husband and mother clash over how things should be done. Still, Fleming says those disputes have turned into one more chance for the two of them to spend quality time together.

"As for disagreements, my mom and my husband both know a ton about construction, so they definitely have strong opinions about how things should be built," she shares. "But every one of those debates ends in a bonding moment where the two of them spend entirely too much money on tools together."

At present, the family's priority is finishing the existing house, with the bulk of the work slated for completion by early 2027 and construction on her mother's wing potentially getting underway in 2028.

Despite the long road ahead, Fleming remains convinced the sacrifices will be worth it, especially since Klein will grow up with his grandmother nearby.

"Multigenerational living is common in most of the world, and it's how families lived for thousands of years," Fleming says. "Now that we've lived it ourselves, I see both the wisdom and the joy in it."